I walked in a Barnes & Noble store Saturday and quickly noticed a Harry Potter display with a sign that read, “It all started with a book.” The display included not just J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels, but also an unofficial Harry Potter cookbook, Lego sets and books, a chess set, and wands. With Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 opening in theaters July 15, Harry Potter mania will take over as fans grapple with the end of 13 years of material based on the books. What is the future of the Harry Potter franchise?

J.K. Rowling’s announcement of the “Pottermore,” an online reading experience, creates a whole new portal for muggles to travel into the wizarding world. Pottermore will launch in October, and boasts partnerships with Bloomsbury, Scholastic, Sony, and Warner Bros. in a Pottermore shop that will sell eBooks of the Harry Potter series. (The series has not yet been released in digital form.) Rowling and her Pottermore team also worked with TH_NK, a UK digital agency, to develop Pottermore, which will include an interactive experience.

To bridge the gap between the final film and Pottermore’s launch, fans still have the Harry Potter amusement park and the traveling Harry Potter: The Exhibition, which is at Discovery Times Square in New York City until September 5. The amusement park helped raise revenue for Universal’s Islands of Adventure Park in Orlando by 16 percent to $95 million during the first quarter of 2011, said Forbes‘s Dorothy Pomerantz.

The Harry Potter franchise brought Warner Bros. around $10 billion during the last 10 years—between $800 million to $1 billion per film at the worldwide box office and around $200 million on DVD/Blu-ray and TV rights for each film, according to Forbes‘s Mark Hughes, which isn’t even counting revenue from merchandise tie-ins.

Hughes expects Warner Bros. to fill the revenue gap left by the end of the Harry Potter movies with superhero movies. But he also says that Harry Potter might not go away. Studios have been mining established franchises for reboots. While I don’t believe that Harry Potter will see a film extension reaching outside of the novels, and I assume that Rowling maintains a clear vision over the brand and quality, I find it unlikely that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 is really the end of franchise growth. Perhaps Hughes will see his predicted animated Harry Potter TV series. Or Tales of Beedle the Bard will get the green light for animated specials. New video games could provide new opportunities for the wizarding world.

As someone who has been reading and watching Harry Potter since the sixth grade when I blazed through the first three books, I just can’t accept Deathly Hallows: Part 2 as my last trip from my broom cupboard—also known as a New York City apartment—into a world of magic, but I’d still bet there’s more to come.

—Melissa Tinklepaugh

Today, Scholastic Media debuts its first children’s storybook apps designed specifically for the iPad.  Under the new brand of “Touch & Tilt” line of iPad book apps, this is Scholastic’s first foray into the children’s iPad book app market.

The three apps in the Touch & Tilt line, available on the iTunes App Store, include I Love You Through And Through, which focuses on “emotional play”; The Magic School Bus: Oceans, which has seven interactive science explorations; and Go, Clifford, Go!, which explores vehicles and motion.

Scholastic, together with Reading is Fundamental (RIF) and the National Summer Learning Association, is challenging kids to Read for the World Record, to help keep kids reading and learning all summer long.

Launching on April 30, the Scholastic Summer Challenge is a global summer reading program with a robust online community for kids—plus expert advice, engaging activities on Facebook, and summer book lists for parents, and resources for librarians and educators—all for free. The Scholastic Summer Challenge kicks off with a live webcast with bestselling authors Christopher Paul Curtis, Gordon Korman, R.L. Stine, and Lisa Yee as they go head-to-head in a book trivia game show on April 30 at 1 p.m. EST. Kids everywhere will test their book knowledge against these bestselling authors.

In conjunction with the Summer Challenge, Governors’ Spouses from across the nation are signing up to serve as “Reading Ambassadors” to help spread the important message about reading books over the summer in their respective states. This is the second year the Spouses are supporting this cause. Scholastic will donate 500 books to a school selected by each First Spouse, to ensure that children have books to take home to read over the summer vacation.

Discovery Communications continues to expand its publishing program through a North American-based publishing deal with Scholastic to launch two new children’s books, MythBusters Science Fair Book and Dogs 101, based on the series on Discovery Channel and Animal Planet, respectively.  Does a clothed snowman melt faster than an unclothed snowman? Can cola shine a penny? In the MythBusters Science Fair Book, children can help bust or confirm myths much like the hosts of the Discovery Channel series. The 128-page, full-color book for children ages 10-14 will be available in spring 2011.

Dogs 101 will highlight different dog breeds and feature fun facts on each breed, including size and personality. The 64-page, full-color book features more than 150 images and will be available this summer for children ages 6-12 years.

This relationship with Scholastic follows on the heels of several other Discovery Communications publishing deals.  Discovery previously partnered with Meredith Corporation to create a children’s book titled Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe: Get the Real Dirt Behind the World’s Dirtiest Jobs, which was released in January. Discovery Communications also recently penned a deal with Bendon Publishing International for a line of children’s color and activity books.

The deal was brokered on behalf of Discovery and Animal Planet by its licensing agent, the Joester Loria Group (JLG).

Scholastic Media has announced that its I SPY Spooky Mansion iPhone app cracked into the Top 5 in the “Paid Kids Games” category on the App Store. With 3,000 apps in this category, I SPY Spooky Mansion jumped up nine spots in one week, experiencing the highest number of downloads yet in a single day, besting its previous record set on Christmas day.  I SPY Spooky Mansion is also ranked in the Top 10 among “Paid Puzzle Games.” In the “Paid Educational Games” category, Scholastic Media’s Clifford’s BE BIG With Words App is currently among the Top 10.
I SPY Spooky Mansion and Clifford’s BE BIG With Words lead Scholastic Media’s suite of apps based on its children’s book properties including Clifford the Big Red Dog, I SPY, The 39 Clues, and  WordGirl. An additional I SPY app called I SPY Riddle Race is currently among the Top 50 among “Paid Kids Games” and “Paid Puzzle Games.”

For more information on the apps, go here.  If you would like more information about Scholastic, visit the media room.

What are your favorite iPhone Apps? What do you think about young kids using the iPhone for gaming, educational or otherwise? Leave us some comments and let us know what you think!